Satiety of Selected Indian Foods Is Influenced More by the Protein and Fat Than the Carbohydrate Content

With the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity, helping people control/ manage their energy intake is important. Foods/ recipes that can confer satiety would help in this regard. Each of the macronutrients has different effects on satiety, with protein conferring greater satiety. In the present study, nine common Indian equicaloric recipes that varied in their macronutrient composition were tested for their satiety. Standard recipes for these were prepared providing approximately 15% energy from protein, 20% from fat and about 40% from carbohydrates. In the test recipes, either energy contribution from protein was raised to 30%, or fat contributed about 40% with carbohydrates, giving about 48% energy. In the high carbohydrate versions, carbohydrate recipes provided about 80% energy while fat provided only 6% energy. Satiety was assessed with 35-47 participants and satiety scores were calculated by area under the curve. Satiety scores were positively correlated with protein and bre content but were negatively correlated with fat. There was no correlation between carbohydrate content and satiety scores. High protein variations had higher cooked weights, tended to have lower energy density and delayed hunger for a longer period. The mixture of dairy and plant protein sources gave greater satiety than did plant sources and dairy sources alone gave the lowest satiety. Also, sweet recipes were rated lower than savoury ones. It would be worthwhile to examine the effect of different sources of plant proteins with and without dairy proteins as the latter appeared to be less satiating than plant proteins.